TEACHING LITERATURE IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE: NEW OR OLD METHODS?

This study reconsiders reports that have examined literature for foreign learners. For decades a good number of traditional approaches to literature remained as ‘propaganda’ and unsuccessful for the reason that they failed to generate a reliable set of proposals as to how a literature ‘track’ could be designed; more exactly, no clearly-defined role for teaching in universities was provided to meet the needs of present foreign language learners. Because literature is beginning to be regarded as an appropriate means for language learning and development, there is an urgent need to bring to the fore examples of classroom procedure and practice in the teaching of literature to look forward to the student of the 21st century.
In this paper, I have tried to put forward some suggestions related to teaching literature with overseas students. What happens in classrooms, has in fact, shown that classroom settings cannot be explained by a restricted number of methods, but simply by the interaction of many variables, some of which can be openly observed and many of which go beyond linguistic as well as literary theory.